Time/Date - 10:00 AM, Saturday , October 20, 2012
Place - Coffee Beanery, 28557 Woodward Ave., Berkley, MI
Attending - Art M, Pat S and Susie S
The
first item for discussion centered on an article entitled “Binders Full
of Women, and Two Women Bound” by Amy Goodman of Common Dreams. You can
find the complete article at http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/10/18-3.
Green Party presidential candidate Dr. Jill Stein and her running mate,
Green Party vice president nominee Cheri Honkala, were shackled to
chairs in a nearby New York police facility so that they would not be
able to attend the presidential debate at Hofstra University. The
debates are very closely controlled by the Commission on Presidential
Debates (CPD), which EXCLUDES THIRD PARTY CANDIDATES.
The
CPD is a private corporation created by the Republican and Democratic
parties, and no third party candidates are permitted to debate, even if,
as in the case of the Green Party this year, the candidates are “on
the ballot in 38 states and available as write-ins for the rest.”
A
very interesting article summarizes a recently published book by
Seumas Milne, which is entitled “The Revenge of History: the Battle for
the 21st Century.” It can be found at:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/oct/19/new-world-order
Mr.
Milne proposes that recent developments worldwide have signaled the
“end of the New World Order.” He writes that the New World Order, as
introduced by George Bush Senior in 1990, is “based on uncontested US
military power and western economic dominance.” Of course, many
presidents and others have spoken of a New World Order, and meant
different things by it, but this is the definition that Milne uses in
this article.
Milne
sees the US response to 9/11, and the crash of 2008 along with “the
crisis of the western-dominated capitalist order it unleashed, [as]
speeding up relative US decline.” The rise of China and the tide of
progressive change in Latin America have furthered the demise of the
neoliberal agenda, though as Milne acknowledges, “multipolarity brings
its own risks of conflict.”
The
author writes that “in the aftermath of the crisis of the neoliberal
order, the need to reconstruct a broken economy on a more democratic,
egalitarian and rational basis began to dictate the shape of a
sustainable alternative. Both the economic and ecological crisis
demanded social ownership, public intervention and a shift of wealth and
power. Real life was pushing in the direction of progressive
solutions.”
In fact, Iceland refused to bail out their banks: see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-tpjlHn3F8
The
movie The Promised Land with Matt Damon concerns the practice of
fracking and its effects on a community in Pennsylvania, where it has
become common (see the movie Gasland).
“The
energy industry is worried that it will be presented in a critical
light and is preparing possible responses, such as providing film
reviewers with scientific studies, distributing leaflets to moviegoers
and launching a "truth squad" initiative on Twitter and Facebook, the Journal said.” This quote is taken from the following link:
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/energy-industry-targets-upcoming-matt-377022
An excellent website with a comprehensive collection of articles on energy follows:
http://www.energybulletin.net/
Our next meeting is scheduled for Saturday, November 3, 2012 at 10 a.m. at the Coffee Beanery (see address above).
Respectfully submitted,
Susie Schindler
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